Kintsugi Chapter 35: One Last Ride - Part 2
Perseus, one of the most famous heroes of the ancient world. The slayer of the Gorgon, the slayer of the sea monster Cetus, and (supposedly) the great ancestor of the Persian people.
Hell, he was even Hercules' Great Grandfather.
This great hero was…. well…
"I told you to leave me alone!"
"I-I-I didn't know y-you were actually-actually Z-Zeus's kid!"
"I-I-I didn't know you were Hephaestus' kid!" mocked Perseus.
Hephaestus watched the two argue back and forth, trying to decide who was the bigger idiot between them. Hephaestus looked at Ifrit, the two of them sharing a look that said nothing yet everything at the same time. He suffered through another minute of it before he raised his hands.
"Alright, alright," sighed Hephaestus, waving them down. "Enough. You two are acting like children. Perseus, my daughter only wanted to ascertain the truth."
He turned to Eri.
"Eri," he sighed once again.
"W-what?" she muttered, looking away.
"...For all you argue otherwise… you were trying to enchant him."
"I KNEW IT! Witches are all the–"
The air grew cold, as Hephaestus turned to Perseus. The demigod wilted a bit at the cold gleam of Hephaestus' golden eyes.
"Do not mistake my calmness for passivity. The only reason you still live is because you gave her warning shots. If you had aimed to kill at any time… you wouldn't have a head."
Ifrit opened her wings a tad, fire easing out from her beak. The sharp glare of the bird of prey was melting right into Perseus' core. The young man had the decency to at least nod.
"Uh… right…um..sir. My apologies."
"Oh, you're respectful to h-him," pouted Eri.
"...Eri."
"...Y-yes Papa," she blinked cutely.
"You're not helping."
When she was younger, her cutesy words would have struck him dead. Now, while funny, it didn't quite land the same. Especially when it was usually to get what she wanted.
"You say it as if it doesn't still work on you anymore," chuckled Phelegetheon.
"...Do you all have nowhere else to go?" thought Hepheastus exasperatedly.
"Not really."
"Pallas is busy."
"My other half is currently exploring."
The sound of bubbles popped in his mind.
"She says, 'I think it's fun being here'."
Hephaestus brow twitched.
"...My life has become a sitcom," he thought.
"What's a… sitcom?" asked Cocytus.
"Don't worry about it."
Perseus sighed, rubbing the back of his head.
"Look, I'm just here to slay Medusa and go home, alright?"
"Medusa?" scoffed Eri. Her eyes shuddered into a vile green hue for a moment, her smile twisting into a sneer.
"Uh…yea, Medusa," muttered Perseus, stepping back.
"You?" scowled Eri, pointing at him. "Slay Medusa?"
"Yea…yeah! That's right!" He got into her face; the two of them glaring at each other, with nary a space between their eyes. "Me! I don't see you two doing anything about it!"
Perseus was many things. A fool, he was not… but he was certainly brazen. Perseus grimaced, immediately berating himself for saying something like that. He struggled to look at Hephaestus, the god merely raising a brow with a small smirk.
"I can see now how the king got you to promise to slay a monster," drawled Hephaestus. The red-haired god looked to the sky, his smile growing softer at a single dark cloud, alone amidst a sea of blue across the sky.
He watched the boy ease away from Eri, the young man rubbing his brow.
"...I tend to speak before I think," he grunted, shaking his hands, "I know, it's a problem. Almost as much of a problem as being accosted by a witch!" he yelled, pointing his finger at Eri.
"I-I'm shocked you even k-know that word!" she growled, crossing her arms.
"Stop talking like that, it's not cute."
Eri blushed a bit, a small stutter coming out. She struggled for a moment before her eyes turned sharp.
"I-I-I can't h-help that!"
It was a bit of a sore point for Eri, one that many had brought up before several times in the past. Yet, Perseus only blinked. Rather than laugh, he seemed befuddled more than anything. He rubbed his chin as he eyed her.
"Seriously?" he asked.
He only got a nod from her, the pissed expression never leaving her face.
"...Wow," He said breathly, "That must be annoying."
"Y-you have no idea," she muttered, looking away.
"Okay… look," he smirked. He walked around the two, the tension slowly easing from them all. "I think we all got a bit tangled up together here." Said Perseus. His smile strained as he looked between them. "So, how about we just go on about our own separate ways, hmm? You and your pops go off on whatever you were doing, I slay a monster, get the girl, and we all go home happy? Yea?"
Hephaestus felt a migraine coming on.
"This is one hundred percent Zeus' kid," snickered Phelegethon.
"The similarities are eerie," muttered Cocytus.
"Reminds of Zeus in his first century. Quick on his feet, but faster with his tongue," whispered Acheron, "So sad."
"...Do I even want to know what you mean by that?"
Hephaestus looked towards the sun. Helios pulled the sphere of flames across the sky, but… he was dimmer to Hephaestus.
"...So it's true," he thought.
"Aye, Helios is passing down his domain to Apollo. At least, the responsibility of it," sighed Styx.
"Do we know when?" he asked.
"Could be any day now."
The sun was already starting to tilt from its zenith, noon just passing them by.
Perseus eyed the sun's movements, scoffing.
"Tch, the day's burning away."
"You seem in a rush," muttered Eri, "You're taking Medusa too lightly."
"...Lightly?" he scowled. Perseus shook himself, his weapons and gear rattling as he eyed the smaller witch. "I've been armed by the gods. If anything, I might be overprepared."
Perseus looked at his weapons. A shield, a small feathered cap of all things, feathered sandals, and a swo–
"Hey! That's dad's!"
Perseus blinked, looking at the weapon she was pointing at. He drew the sword, Harpe, and while it looked different, the aura was unmistakable. Similar to a kopesh, the sickle sword shone with an eerie light.
"This thing?" muttered Perseus.
"Yeah! That's Harpe!"
"How did you know its name?"
Eri wilted a bit as her father turned to her, a brow raised.
"Yes… how did you know its name?"
He had never shown the weapon to Eri, ever. In fact, there was a great number of his arms that she was not privy to, or as made apparently obvious right now, was not supposed to know. Mostly because he didn't think to even show her, and in some cases, simply because of their dangers.
Harpe was simply a sword, yes, but it was a blade that carried powerful anti-immortal properties.
Due to the natural differences between the Gods of EMIYA's world and his current existence, Harpe was not as potent. Yet, its deadly edge was still feared, for a strike with Harpe rarely healed well, even for an immortal.
It may not kill them permanently, but the weapon was strong enough to render a god inert for far longer than any would like. In short, it was not a weapon he wanted near her, just in case.
So how did she know about it?
"Not important," squeaked Eri. She looked at Perseus and glared, pointing at him with her finger. Her eyes dashed between the two as she spoke, "He's got your weapon, Papa!"
"No, he doesn't. That is a creation of Athena."
He summoned the scythe form of Harpe, ignoring the gleeful shine in Eri's eyes. Instead, he focused on the blade in Perseus' hand. Visually, it was perfect. Perfect balance, perfect edge, and even a perfect grip. The anti-divine properties however were the most interesting aspect of it.
Athena did not recreate his weapon's properties so much as she somehow copied and pasted it, granting it a new form of her own design. It was certainly one of the most intriguing things he had come across in this life.
"May I?" asked Hephaestus.
Perhaps it was his standing as a god that made Perseus obey, as the young man handed over the weapon to him with but nary a complaint. Hephaestus looked between them the two weapons, the Harpe of this world and the Harpe of EMIYA's. Eri and Persues both felt a shiver crawl up their spines. A part of them instinctively wary of the weapon that Hephaestus had summoned.
Perseus eyed the sword that was given to him by his father. Supposedly created by Athena, the weapon was made of Celestial Bronze. Perseus had assumed, or rather hoped, that the metal was adamantine; but alas, he was not so lucky.
Pure mortals were immune to the metal, with the blade merely passing through them, hence the second sword he kept on his waist just in case.
Yet, even though it could not cut a man, it had been the strongest weapon he had ever seen, the envy of any blade. At least, he thought it was. The other Harpe… it spoke to him in the strangest sense. So engrossed in thought, Perseus never felt Hephaestus' eyes on him.
There was no sudden flash of memory. No infusion of a history not his own. Only the ghost of a story that itched the back of Perseus' mind. A firm declaration of a story that wasn't even written, and a story that he'd never read.
What that story was, Perseus didn't know.
Still though, if there was one thing for certain, the two weapons couldn't be more different. For starters, his was a damn sword, and the thing Hephaestus had forged was a scythe!
It was evil looking too. A bladed edge that promised death. Yet, it wasn't the danger that echoed in Perseus' mind. Nor was it the idea that this was a god who could crush him without a thought.
"...I wish my sword looked like that," thought Perseus forlornly.
His was a simple weapon. Sturdy and dependable. But Hephaestus' Harpe looked menacing. There was an immediate respect to the weapon that he couldn't shake. Even now, knowing intellectually the inefficiencies of a scythe weapon, Persues felt that Hephaestus' weapon was the stronger of the two.
"Intriguing," whispered Hephaestus. "An infusion of concepts…"
The river Lethe allowed him to remove the "memories" of a given object. He used this to allow reinforcement's effects to become permanent. Yet, Athena had done something else. She had… captured, for lack of a better term, the memory of an object and infused it.
"It's as if she transformed a memory into a concept in and of itself!" he thought.
There was a psionic trace to Perseus' Harpe.
"...Memory," smirked Hephaestus, his eyes glowing with inspiration. "She used memory as a material."
Perseus didn't understand it, and to be quite frank, Eri didn't so much either. Yet, the sudden warmth in her chest told her all she needed to know.
Her father was right.
Hephaestus had never thought to include concepts the way Athena had done. It was surgical perfection. An excision of memory that was implanted into a sword and "kneaded" into the metal.
The moment that he had dispersed Harpe, Athena had effectively analyzed its construction, the essence of its concepts, and had transplanted it into a suitable host. It was a reduction of what it could be, reduced from a God-slaying weapon, to one that rendered immortals dead.
It was a small distinction but a profoundly important one. A God was not "immortal" in the sense that their lives went on forever. Rather, it was that they were not even alive to begin with. They simply were.
Concepts given form.
But to a monster like Medusa? Either blade was a bane to her.
"A good attempt," smiled Hephaestus, eyes alight with wonder. "I wonder…"
Hephaestus couldn't help himself. The Harpe in his hand dispersed, while the sword that bore its name shone with light. Blue lines shone across the blade, Hephaestus delving into its creation.
It was perfect, in a superficial sort of way. While the weapon itself was structurally sound, its level could be developed even further. The concepts that tied them together, the way the blade was one with the magic that was infused into it, there were rounds of improvement that had been left unpaved.
It was elementary to reinforce the avenues untaken in the blade's construction. He smiled, a small warmth at a new avenue presented before him to further hone his craft. To think, memory itself could be a material.
While Hephaestus' basked in the possibilities, Eri's warmth dwindled. The feeling of her mother, it soured into a heavy annoyance that was harder to shake.
So, she turned it onto someone else.
"See! That's my father's weapon!"
Hephaestus could only sigh. Meanwhile, Perseus bugged out, yelling as he pointed at the god.
"They look completely different!? How is this his weapon!?"
Perseus shook both his hands, wildly pointing at either weapon.
"Get your eyes checked, witch!"
"You get your eyes checked!"
"At least have a retort worth a damn!"
Hephaestus said nothing as he returned the sword to the son of Zeus. Perseus clutched the sword like one would a child, eyeing the blue lines like a kid in a candy store.
"Don't!" blushed Eri, "Don't repeat that. I get it."
"No, do repeat that," smirked Perseus.
The two went at it like cats and dogs again.
He loved Eri, but the poor girl was a bit of a loud mouth. If it was about his supposed "glory and honour," Eri seemed deadset on making him out to be the greatest of the Greeks. It was mostly why he never revealed his reality marble to her. Learning that her father had crafted an inner reality?
The girl wouldn't be able to keep her mouth shut.
"She's not that bad," smiled Styx. A ghost image of her, visible to only himself, appeared in front of him. She smiled at Eri. "What greater honour is there than a child that loves you so?"
"...I taught her more about fire," thought Hephaestus, "To a point that she figured out how to make briquettes using magic."
It had all come about with Eri's struggles with fire. At first, he thought it was a sweet attempt at spending more time with her father.
Turns out, fire hated her, or at least, that was the way Eri described it. That it was volatile and sporadic to her, unlike the other elements commanded by magic. Hephaestus found the opposite though.
It wasn't that she was hated; it was that she was loved.
She was born from fire personified. As such, any flames she summoned were… excited, as Eri liked to say. It was hard not to smile with pride at the way she worked out how to fuel said flames after he taught her all he knew.
He had to change some words, but Eri had gotten the gist of the physics behind combustion. Then she went off like a bolt, mastering fire to an absurd degree that Hecate herself told her to never use fire spells thoughtlessly. Eri had also gone and made briquettes of all things.
"You mean her 'fire bricks'?" muttered Styx.
"They are called bri–you're right," corrected Hephaestus. "I warned her of the consequences of such a thing, that speeding up human development can have consequences we don't intend for. That it would be best to sit down and really think it through before sharing anything with others…"
Hephaestus didn't blame her for wanting to help. Roman concrete (or well, now Lemnian concrete) was something that he had shared as well. But, it was something done after much careful consideration. It was this sense of prudence and cautiousness that Hephaestus had tried to impart to Eri.
He had told her to her face, made sure to stress the severity her actions could have, of the consequences that could occur… and then she went and shared the damn thing two hours after their conversation.
Styx chuckled as she ghosted around Eri and Perseus' argument, seen only by Hephaestus. "Ah yes. She ran right through the city, declaring that you had taught her how to make the 'bricks of fire'. It became a consistent source of warmth for the humans as I recall."
The spirit pursed her lips, a brow raised as she eyed him.
"Is that outcome so horrendous?"
"Of course not, Styx." He smiled, thinking of the way Lemnos had developed. "If I could ensure that nothing bad would ever happen, I would do as Eri does and share all that I know. Her heart is in the right place, but there are many notable concerns with elevating or rapidly accelerating the development of others, especially if it applies to entire civilizations as a whole."
The ancient spirit's mouth screwed into quizzical concern. He spoke as if he knew what humanity was supposed to become. Rather strange for a God that was younger than most of the humans on Lemnos.
Her own thoughts turned dark as Styx turned to eye Eri instead. She reflected on what she had seen in Tartarus those years ago.
"..."
The very thought fed an ire that would never die. The way he spoke, as if countless ages rested upon his shoulders… there was only one logical person, nay… only one logical… thing to blame for someone so young acting so old.
"...Hera," she thought, with a caustic vitriol seeping deep from her core. You could feel it permeate from the goddess, which caused Hephaestus' smile to sour.
"...I didn't think she cared so much," he thought, believing that Styx was still on civilizational development. He cleared his throat, an odd habit for someone speaking within his mind. "The problem," he stressed, Styx's gaze returning to him, "is that I tell her one thing, and she does another. Eri is the brightest joy of my life."
He watched her argue with Perseus with a zeal that could only bring a smile.
"Bright, spontaneous, and full of energy. But…" he looked away, lost in his own mind. "The truth is… I can't trust her with my inner world. She has shown me time and again that if she believes it is for the betterment of my so-called honour, she'll do anything, even if I forbid it. The truth of my reality marble should remain hidden for as long as possible."
Admittedly, there were others that already knew of his greatest skill, true. However, none that he would consider an enemy at this time, and most importantly, no one knew the full scope of its capabilities. Even the rivers, living within his world, had never seen Unlimited Blade Works brought forth in its entirety against an enemy or even seen it fully manifest.
He had no doubt that once he finally unveiled his reality marble, it would eventually become common knowledge. However, the longer he delayed it, the sharper Unlimited Blade Works remained. A trump card that couldn't be prepared for was the best trump card.
He definitely felt guilt about keeping it to himself… but… well…
"I'LL KICK YOUR ASS!" yelled Eri.
Case in point. She was a bit of a loudmouth.
"NOT IF I KICK YOURS FIRST!"
Perseus pointed at Hephaestus.
"But I can't! Because you got daddy here protecting you!"
"If you wish to spar… I won't stop you," said Hephaestus, a gleam suddenly appearing in his eye.
"Wait, what?" muttered Perseus.
"Oh, w-w-whose scared now?" grinned Eri.
"It would be good for Eri. It is rare for her to spar with anyone near her level."
"He is not near my level," smirked Eri.
"Nipping that concern in the bud now, are we?" smirked Styx.
His daughter was certainly strong. But that strength came at a cost. In terms of physical strength, she was stronger than her frame would suggest, with her strength exceeding adult men easily. Her skill with a spear was noteworthy, though it lacked in comparison to her skills in magic.
Her ingenuity with the ancient power went beyond even Hecate's most generous estimations. She was a prodigy, the greatest as Hecate was so keen to remind her of quite often.
For all that the goddess portrayed herself as a professional teacher, she sure gushed like a proud mother every so often.
So great was her prodigious abilities that those that sparred with Eri could never really push her. Simply put… she had grown arrogant, no two ways about it.
Hephaestus had hoped that Alcippe would help curb Eri's growing arrogance. Unfortunately, the daughter of war rejected the responsibility. She was more than willing to fight, but Alcippe didn't want to simply spar. She was every bit Ares' kid because any fight she got into would be to the death.
As Alcippe said, there wasn't any other point otherwise.
"Not that I blame her entirely," thought Hephaestus.
If there is one thing Hephaestus and Ares agreed on, it was that "a dead enemy was the best enemy". Though Alcippe was so adamant about it, even in sanctioned spars, it had gotten to the point that Hephaestus was honestly more than a little hesitant in having Eri face off against her.
Hephaestus rubbed his jaw, eyeing the way Perseus smirked at Eri. Zeus had always lamented how Perseus was besieged by monsters so often. Yet…
There was not a single scar across the man's body.
"This opportunity may be the spark she needs," thought Hephaestus.
She surpassed most witches in the general field of magic nowadays, lacking knowledge only in the more specific or specialized fields. When they returned from this trip, Eri planned to specialize in elemental magics, the kind that was considered the most difficult to master, before moving on to the other branches.
Elemental magic was a disastrous power, one that could alter even the terrain. Deadly and powerful, just the way Eri liked it.
"Perseus, please use this."
A wooden blade, shaped to the dimensions of Athena's Harpe, fell to the ground in front of him. Perseus tested the weight of the weapon, nodding as he adjusted his grip.
"As for you Eri–"
A spear fell, only for Eri to preen as she looked away from it.
"Won't need it."
The weapon dispersed.
"If you use a spell with blatant deadly force, you will be considered to have lost, so be careful," cautioned Hephaestus.
Eri stood undeterred, as if the coming storm was merely a gust. She bore the arrogance of Athena well. Hephaestus tossed a stone in the air, signaling their little match. Eri relaxed, rolling her shoulders. She was ready.
Till she wasn't.
The moment it hit the ground, Perseus was already in front of her. She squealed, the clothes on her left arm lighting up with mystical shields.
CRACK!
"Hmm, that's interesting," smirked Perseus, pushing the wooden sword against the ethereal shield. He pushed forward, frowning a bit at the way she held her ground. They were locked together, both pushing the other to no avail. Most men buckled under his strength. He needed to throw her off.
"If I win, I'll take that," smirked Persues, eyeing the cloth around her arm.
"Big mistake," muttered Hephaestus.
Eri's eyes narrowed, turning green as magic pulsated between them.
"...Ah sh–"
"BURST."
Perseus grunted as he was launched across the field. The trees broke his fall as he landed in the bushes.
"GOT YOU!" yelled Eri, ancient markings flowing from her finger tips. The tracks of magic flowed, her eyes glowing green as she spoke.
"Restrain!"
Vines erupted from the ground around Perseus, her victory in hand. Yet, he flowed like the wind, weaving through every vine, striking those he couldn't dodge, and rushed at Eri again.
He was faster than any human Eri knew, quickly closing the gap. She adjusted the vines, balls of fire forming at her back. Perseus blinked.
"You can fire two spells at once!?"
Concurrent casting. For many, Hecate and her eldest students were the only beings capable of the practice… until today. The balls of fire launched, her poor father having to snuff the flames when they missed.
"...Fine then," smirked Eri.
Sweat dripped from her brow, her brain working overtime. Fire and ice formed around her, along with the vines that kept forming to snap at Perseus.
"Oh, come on!? Three!?"
She was inspired by the blades her father launched, and thus created her own elemental variant of it. She had never needed to use it, the strain too much to be worth using in genuine combat.
But Persues was merely a man, one without the gift of magic.
"Oof!"
One that could never reach her level.
"Whoo!"
One that should–
"Your aim sucks!"
"J-just stand s-still!" yelled Eri.
It didn't matter what she seemed to do. Perseus was as slippery as an eel, his movements too smooth to be considered human. The way he flowed between every blow, dodged every vine, and batted away anything that came too close. It was simply spectacular.
Having enough, Eri's arm glowed with ethereal power, her eyes narrowed as she focused to unleash raw kinetic power.
"PUSH!"
Wind erupted in front of her, but for Perseus, time seemed to slow. As a son of Zeus, lightning was the purview of the legendary demigod. Yet, unlike his future half siblings, Perseus' divine heritage was internal, rather than external.
His internal nervous system was supercharged, able to be adjusted on an instinctual level. In simple terms, Perseus' reflexes were unmatched.
"Tsk," grunted Eri. She had one last resort as Perseus started rushing forward again. "STOP!"
Perseus didn't even flinch; Eri's eyes widening at the sight.
"Wait-w-what?"
She could only blush, embarrassed as Perseus' wooden sword was pointed at her jugular.
"You lose, Witchie," smirked the young man.
Eri said nothing, only turning away.
"Well done." smiled Hephaestus, "Though a bit rough, your skill is apparent."
"Thanks," smirked the demi-god, hoisting the wooden blade on his shoulder. "While I was kidding about taking her shield thing, I think a boon is in order, no?"
"No."
"...No?"
"No," smirked Hephaestus.
"...I…um…"
Before anyone could say anything else, Hephaestus stilled for a moment before looking up, eyeing the sun. His eyes narrowed, its glare doing little to veer his eyes away.
"...Papa?"
The sun fluctuates for a moment, its heat distorted.
"Hephaestus, what is wrong?" whispered Styx.
She reduced her divinity, her sisters following suit. The very edges of his senses cleared up, his eyes darting to the woods.
"Father, what's wrong!?"
His head was on a swivel, shifting across the woods, following something. There wasn't a sound, nary a movement, yet the edges of his senses screamed something was here. Something dangerous.
Blades formed above his head, Perseus' eyes widening at the sight. They were peerless, weapons of quality that exceeded anything the Demi-god had seen.
Even the blade in his own hand felt inadequate. After all, one was a crimson blade screaming death. The crimson energy that surrounded it snarled like a hungry animal.
"Hrunting," whispered Hephaestus, focusing the weapon on the disturbance his senses felt.
"Hrunting," smiled Eri, the crimson sword etched into her mind. She didn't know what language her father spoke, but she wouldn't forget it.
Then it screamed and her heart fell into her stomach. It tore through the air, uncaring of what was in front of it. The crimson aura seemed to wretch the fear from her stomach straight to her chest.
There wasn't a sound after that, merely wisps of red and a few broken branches. Perseus gawked, staring at the fluttering embers of what remained of Hrunting's hunger.
"Woah, hey wh–!"
The rune for air formed on Hephaestus' left hand, a gust of air slamming into Eri and Perseus. The two couldn't react, their eyes only widened as a massive boar seemed to ease out of the woods from behind where they were. If they had not been pushed, the boar would have trampled them.
It was the picture of savagery, massive tusks greater than any man, with a skull larger than even Hephaestus himself. The tusks of this pig were jagged, the points closing in slightly in the center to skewer anything in its path.
Its hide shone with an unnatural luster, its eyes shining with a luminous silver. A pair of silver eyes, crazed and unfocused. Hephaestus gritted his teeth, grabbing the tusks with his hands and digging into the ground.
In barely a second, the two were gone, leaving Eri and Perseus alone.
"...what…in Hades was that?" whispered Eri.
"Don't know, but you better chase after them."
Eri scowled as Perseus picked himself up and trekked into the woods. For a moment, she thought of chasing her father. Instead, she hung back, eyeing the back of Perseus. She looked around, Ifrit was nowhere to be seen and with that, came opportunity.
She silently followed after Perseus, her arms flickering with barely contained power.
She had a score to settle.
Her father was the strongest and greatest of the Greek Gods. She wasn't worried. He was fine.
-Meanwhile-
Hephaestus was worried.
The boar's momentum was greater than anticipated. Even as he dug into the ground, the boar's assault did not relent in the slightest. The land around his feet shifted to accommodate the boar's movement.
Frankly, it was the weirdest experience he's had in this life recently. No matter how his legs dug into the earth, the ground seemed to avoid his heels. He couldn't focus on something he couldn't fix, so instead he glared at the massive boar.
His hands still gribbed its tusks, his narrowed gaze trying to study it as quickly as he could.
"It's the use of divinity… somehow it's altering the terrain and ignoring phenomena… it's nothing like the last beast," he thought.
"That thing is massive!" roared Phlegetheon.
"I know. But it's the divinity that's concerning."
From what Hephaestus recalled, most living things could not endure divinity well, not without boons or blessings to contain and direct the energy. Even the dragons that feasted on Zeus' lightning were not immune to an overdose of divinity.
The dragon he slew with Artemis to tether Eri's pain to his body was comparable to the boar before him. Yet, it had been a rampaging monster, reduced to bare instincts. Instead, there was intelligence here, a power that was overflowing yet felt natural to the beast.
Artemis' power flowed within this boar as easily as Hephaestus breathed. Every moment its body adjusted to the divinity, honing it further to empower whatever strangeness it was invoking.
It took him a moment to realize that this was no beast but rather a monster of some sort. Its tusks were too sharp and its gaze too intelligent for it not to be a monster of some kind.
That just made it worse.
For all the intelligence it possessed, its gaze was elsewhere, looking through Hephaestus to something in the distance. As if the boar was chasing something, and Hephaestus was just along for the ride. The god tightened his grip on the tusks, eyes narrowed as he watched countless formed weapons veer off course or simply break off the boar's hide.
"Uh… that's new," muttered Phlegetheon.
"Oh, why thank you, sister, for your riveting commentary. Truly, what a help you are." The sarcasm was frigid, the words scraping across the back of his skull.
"Oh, fuck off, Cocytus!"
"Could you all be quiet! He's in the middle of something!"
Hephaestus may not, and never would, regret having helped the sisters of the underworld free themselves from their chains, but the side effect of them remaining within his inner world was… annoying, to say the least.
By the gods, they literally had most of Greece to travel. Was his head that interesting? Styx's voice, sharp and true, cut through the jumble of his thoughts.
"Hephaestus!"
"Right," he muttered.
His blades did nothing. They were simply rejected or broke upon the boar's hide. At first, he thought it was simply a matter of power. Yet, even the A rank noble phantasms were simply ignored.
This was more. It was not simply a matter of defense. The blades were taken off course by authority of the divine energy within the beast. Anything dangerous, diverted. Anything weak, ignored.
It reminded him of the [Protection from Arrows] skill EMIYA had seen from his time as either a servant or Counter Guardian. Yet, it was more than that. It was the way the beast moved through the trees. Nothing impeded it, the shrubs, the trees, all of this massive forest was simply… ignored.
He had fought the dragon that devoured lightning, but it had never incorporated divinity so thoroughly, not like this.
"...I've felt this before," whispered Styx.
To himself, Hephaestus thought of Python. At least, the weaker snake that was born from Python's lineage. It too seemed to devour divinity readily, able to integrate its power.
It brought a thought to mind. He tried digging his feet again, the ground simply moving around his metallic feet. His eyes narrowed as he jerked the tusks, the creature swerving to the right from his strength.
"Perhaps–"
"Hephaestus, this creature is emboldened by his surroundings!"
Hephaestus hid the annoyance expertly, responding to Styx's interruption. "I can see that, it's protecting him–"
"That's not what I meant," she hissed. Styx's words were coated with worry. He could feel her gaze within him. She couldn't see beyond his own sight like this, but he got the general feel of where her focus was.
On a border that was fast approaching.
Hephaestus stiffened for a moment. It struck him that this was not merely a physical beast. Rather, it was a beast that was shrouded in divine power. Artemis was a goddess of the wild but she was also a lord of the hunt.
"...I haven't faced anything that was capable of it," thought Hephaestus, "but is this… a Marble Phantasm?"
The world was so different from EMIYA's that Hephaestus didn't think it was possible. Still, he was able to invoke the reality marble he had inherited. It should have stood to reason that a similar ability could be invoked in this world, even if not by his own hands.
Divine authority empowering an event conversion. Hephaestus doubted it was the same, but it was far too similar to what EMIYA knew.
A Marble Phantasm was an assertion to the natural world, a change in the rules within the systems that surrounded the user. It couldn't affect things that operated outside of the world's parameters, such as humans, but that didn't mean it couldn't do so indirectly.
The arrows broke upon its hide, his legs found no purchase on the ground. Yet… his hands, they could grip the boar's tusks.
The common similarity was that they were all made of metal. He took it a step further, connecting the forged nature of his constructs to the foundations of Artemis power.
Hephaestus took a breath, and suddenly he exerted his full strength, the tusks cracking underneath his grip.
"SCREEEE!"
It tried to shake him off, Hephaestus' body breaking into trees, but his grip remained true. No matter how hard the boar tried, its strength was eclipsed by his own.
"If my thoughts are correct!"
The tusks in his hands cracked even further, splinters of enamel cutting into his fingers.
"HRM!"
He shifted the boars head to the side, all his strength jerking the boar's head into the ground. Thrown off balance, the beast hit the earth head first. This time, the ground resisted even the boar, the two sliding through the dirt.
Trees, nature, everything and everything was flattened by the massive body of the monster. As they moved, Hephaestus lifted the head one last time, and with a savage twist, broke its neck.
The divinity within it seeped like a popped balloon. His own divinity surged forth, preventing the monster's corpse from dispersing into golden sand. Yet, the usual resistance never came.
"...A monster unclaimed by Tartarus?" he muttered.
"It's been known to happen," grumbled Phelegetheon. "Not every monster is claimed by the pit."
"Explains why the cyclops die permanently," muttered Hephaestus.
He never understood why it was that only certain members of a monster species were claimed by the pit in death. But, it was a mystery for another time. The beast still twitched under his weight, Hephaestus staying put to absorb whatever divinity he could. Cracks ran across his arm, his eyes closing shut as he looked around.
They had barely managed to stay above a hill, well, almost. The ground crumbled at the edge, their combined weight too much for the large cliff to handle. It was simple to slide down the rest of the way though.
His main focus was maintaining contact with the boar. Dead as it may be, the divinity within it was not. He didn't need this contaminating anything else so he busied himself by redirecting the divine force within himself. He waited, yet there was no sign of his friend. The skies and the trees did not sing of her presence, and strangely enough, the nature spirits were dead silent as well.
"Where is she?" he grunted, the energy running wild across his arm. It was nowhere near as volatile compared to when he had Poseidon's divinity in his body, but it was far from pleasant. He could only do this for so long before the energy became… too…
Hephaestus blinked. He stared at the shimmering silver lines, raising a brow at its strange relative stability. It still fought against him, but unlike Poseidon's disastrous might, Artemis was restless but civil.
"Actually," he thought, "it's not that ba–"
"Hephaestus! GET UP!"
He stiffened. In his eyes, Styx was erratic, her form flickering from his sight, her voice echoing as if she was far away.
"Hephaestus, you need to leave no–!"
Their connection cut off violently, their voices silent in his mind. Their presence could still be felt, but they were heavily muted. Their presence that seemed so intertwined with his own now felt so far away. The air felt different, a musk to it that was vile. It clung to the back of his throat; the smell reminding him of dung.
"Oh?"
It slumped into view, a swarm of black in the shape of a man. Its entire body oozed of corruption, bugs swarming in and out of its makeshift flesh. It all swarmed together into the rough shape of a man.
Corruption radiated from this thing, yet there was no mistaking divinity.
The bugs buzzed, humming together to create its voice.
"Young," it wheezed, clasps of a dark ichor splashing on Hephaestus' skin. He felt the foreign divinity trying to invade, his own power igniting the liquid with a cleansing fire.
"Impertinent," it hissed.
You don't belong here.
Obey or die.
The dark whispers did nothing, merely earning a glance from the god at the empty space around him. The gods in the aether nipped at the boar, trying to siphon pieces of Artemis' power.
His own strength warded them off. He eyed the sky, wondering where Artemis even was. She wouldn't let such a thing stand, not ever. Yet… she was absent.
"Just like Styx," he thought.
He felt a flutter of her presence, a flickering deep within the recesses of his mind. Like his finger just brushed against her own but not quite.
He had felt nothing when he crossed this border, yet even so, he saw now what Styx must have been so worried about.
"You slayed the beast… on our lands."
CRACK!
His eyes widened, dozens upon dozens of strands wrapped around him. Thick clothes of energy that sapped at his will, trying to pry the dead boar from his grip. A name echoed in his mind, a voice tinged with pride and authority.
Saurva
The Daeva of bad rule and famine. Several strands of power came from this Daeva, their strands devouring his senses. Purple strands of divinity wrapped around his throat and face. They echoed in his thoughts, resounding the worst of his anxieties and fears.
Honestly, Hephaestus wasn't sure what it was supposed to be like, but for him, it just resounded some words in his head. Things like failure and so forth. Frankly, it was a duller experience than when he went to Tartarus.
At least there it seemed to pack a punch, if Styx's reaction was anything to go off of. It was irritating though.
And the third… the third stood before him. A collection of insects, but a divinity that radiated corruption. There was no expression, no eyes to follow, but he could feel the smugness radiate from the dark God. Unlike the other two, the corrupting divinity of the god before him was not as directed, simply radiating off the vessel that formed it.
"I…am Taurvi." It rumbled.
Its arm grew, a finger scraping on the tusk of the boar as the limb elongated, held together by insects and black tar.
"Finally," it hissed, the black sludge of its body spreading across the tusk. "Finally… the breaker shall fall."
The bugs ballooned out in a facsimile of a smile.
"The light of victory shall be snuffed." A finger trailed across Hephaestus' face, the bugs biting into his cheek. "And you, tresspasser, shall–"
CRUNCH.
Taurvi's words stuttered with a sharp whistle and the buzz of small wings. The finger that trailed on Hephaestus' face was gone, and the god rose with an ease that was all too familiar. The divine bonds snapping not just from his strength, but the sheer level of his divinity.
As he stood, his divinity soared, a searing heat that burned even corruption itself. It was a strange sensation for Taurvi, for it was used to a searing purification, not a seemingly unending heat.
It looked up, the god peering down at him with a calm that was infuriating. Hephaestus stood unbothered, unbroken, even with the corruption of three daevas at his spirit, it did nothing to break him.
But his divinity didn't stop, it kept growing, far beyond the might of any average God.
This was no divine whelp.
"Broken!" hissed a Daeva.
"Sarnevesht-shekan!"
The corruption burned away in its entirety, Hephaestus' eyes glowing as he kept his grip to the tusks of the boar, the tar-like substance absent from its pristine tusks.
"...You are the Daevas," muttered Hephaestus.
"LIES!" roared Taurvi, a speared hand struck Hephaestus, blocked by an arm surrounded by flames. The divinities surged against each other, a collision that creaked at the barrier above. "We are of the divine! We. Are. GODS! The true gods of our lands!"
The daevas were Gods, but they had also come to be known as demons even in this period of time. Gods reduced to the status of demons, desperate to reclaim their status as "gods". Taurvi tried, but its strength was not enough as Hephaestus launched it back.
"Enough. There's no need to fight. Let me on my way–"
"RAW!"
A short screech and Taurvi was on him once more. The other two bolstered their sibling, each attacking him from different directions. But without calcifying into a vessel, the other two may as well have been gusts of wind to someone like Hephaestus.
Too much of themselves was invested into the barrier. Perhaps in the past, Hephaestus would have been more… accommodating, in a way. More afraid to infer a God's eternal wrath, fearing that those around him could suffer from the possible consequences of his actions.
But with age came great wisdom and with wisdom–
CRUNCH!
Came great violence.
He struck Taurvi's head clean off with a swing of an arm covered in flames. He dug his other hand into the chest of the corruption god, searing its vessel with flames from the inside, as he crushed the body to grab the bones. Tendrils of corruption formed from the back of the dark god, with the mud of black tar sharpening into a deadly edge, all of them striking at his neck.
CRUNCH.
And yet, it simply wasn't enough, as the hardened tar cracked on impact. The other two kept trying to seal him back down, with bands of power and divine curses. Even divine law was invoked to little effect.
Every curse crumbled beneath the weight of an iron core. The wisps of their divinity, the divinity that should have wreaked havoc within him, merely seeped out. Divine law cascaded on his shoulders but found no purchase.
It was too familiar to the Daevas, the sight of Hephaestus, too much like him.
Fire eased from his mouth, and Hephaestus' shoulder cracked open to expel the foreign divinity, as the daeva's assault grew even more volatile.
"...How…" hissed one, noting the hints of their power in the flames on his shoulder.
Hephaestus' power climbed ever higher, bits of Taurvi beginning to burn. The trio roared, pouring every last bit of divinity still accessible into the curses within Hephaestus.
The flame on his shoulder only grew, with other cracks spouting flames. Each one expelling the foreign power within him.
"WHAT ARE YOU!?" one demanded, the barrier itself starting to ignite.
"He's… he's using the barrier against us!?"
"Break it down, now!" roared Taurvi.
"We can't, you imbecile!"
The earth around them was unharmed, the nature of the barrier so complete that the world beyond its borders didn't even feel a sign of the battle that was ongoing. In fact, even Hephaestus was impressed by it. It was certainly greater than any barrier he had ever encountered.
"...I'm keeping that to myself," he thought. The image of Hecate's stern eye made him smirk, a sight that just infuriated the daevas even more.
It was ludicrous to them. The core before them was a broken, twisted thing, and young. So terribly young, and yet, it was forcing them down. Taurvi swirled into a mass of mud, attacking at every angle, only to be blocked by walls of steel, of blades the likes of which it had never encountered.
It was then it realized who, or rather what, this was.
"You're an Olympian!?" hissed Taurvi.
The three realized their mistake far too late. Facing this god, with the bulk of their strength invested into their barrier, left them on the back foot, leaving little in reserve to exert their full strength. Still, the idea that the three of them combined, even reduced as they were, were not enough for even one Olympian?
Suffice to say, they were not happy.
Taurvi's vessel began to expand, pieces of their power returning from the barrier.
"Taurvi! Stop, you ca–"
"THE WHELP SHALL FALL!"
Realizing Taurvi was too far gone, the other two aimed for the boar. Their tendrils nipped and gnawed, desperate to take the corpse for themselves. Taurvi growled, its head shifting left and right. Its form unstable as its divinity eclipsed its vessel, the form breaking down further by the minute, but their divinity soaring to its original peak.
"We brought it here! We caged it! It is ours by right!"groaned Taurvi. It shambled forward, malformed hands like boulders slamming to either side of Hephaestus. It loomed over him, the bugs almost eight times their size, ready to burst with black mud. "You are the intruder here!"
Black mud popped from the bugs, landing on Hephaestus. They simply burned away.
"You should be falling! Divine law demands it!
The words echoed into the fabric of reality. The law of the gods bearing down to settle onto Hephaestus with a vengeance… a burden he bore easily. If anything, to Taurvi, it was as if he had just shrugged it off.
The trump card and bane of every god… ignored.
The bugs buzzed erratically, the corruption that kept Taurvi's form together bulging out. It grew to titanic proportions, a gaping maw lunging towards their prize. It wouldn't lose it here, not with it so close!
It just needed to take the corpse! Then, the upstart god would bathe in the corruption of Taurvi!
"The boar will be ours! Victory will fall!"
They all converged together, all thoughts of the trap and barrier lost in their zeal and desperation. One intent of slaying the god, the others focused on their goal. In an instant, the three deava's surged to a power of divinity leagues beyond Hephaestus' singular power.
Before their eyes, the god stood tall.
Before their eyes, the young god smirked.
Before their eyes… their prize was gone.
There was no warp, no surge of energy. There was no trace of a spell or magic.
It was just… gone.
They couldn't sense it anywhere. The space around it had cracked to a realm neither recognized, with a trail none of them could follow, at a speed that was impossible for even the greatest of magicians.
The three gods brought their full weight onto the god before them.
"Fool," breathed one.
"You take what isn't yours…" rasped the other.
"Then we'll simply take you!" growled Taurvi.
Desperation turned into rage, the trio bringing their strength together to Taurvi's vessel. Hephaestus rose a brow, noting the way their divinity converged.
"That's new," he thought.
It didn't meld, not really. Rather, it was as if each Daeva performed a function to elevate the vessel Taurvi had created. It was already breaking apart, mostly mud with little living creatures amongst it, but its power was far from weak. Without the barrier, the three gods before him were quickly regaining their strength.
Hephaestus summoned a spear. It was simple in design, but it held a startling amount of power. It radiated a weight that made no sense to the three gods before him. Powerful, yes, but the weapon did not have a divine aura.
Yet… it seemed as if it could pierce anything.
"You don't want this fight," muttered Hephaestus, readying the spear. His eyes glowed as cracks spread across his body. The ground shook a tad as the full force of his own strength exploded outwardly. "No harm has come to either party. Leave me to return to my home."
A caustic laughter echoed around him, the trio all chuckling at the absurdity of his statement.
"You speak as if you could enforce the alternative," sneered Taurvi. The god's vessel had grown, the smirk jagged and cruel across its muddy body. It dropped from the open crevice that was its mouth, a corrupting mud that killed the ground beneath them.
"Fine," muttered Hephaestus. His body cracked open like thunder, his divinity soaring. Countless weapons flooded the sky. It had already been longer than he'd like.
If he had to kill three Gods to get back to Eri, then so be it.
"I'll take you all on," he said. His words were cold, frigid in the surety that he would win.
Since the battle with Poseidon, Hephaestus had gotten more comfortable using the full breath of his power. After all, there was no concern for Greece being besieged by volcanos thanks to Hestia.
So his power grew, refined by an outer force even the Daevas understood as the god's "guardian". The sheer gall popped Taurvi's skull open, a surge of black smog burning from its rage. A god that was still attached to their guardian, standing before them!?
"Arrogant whelp! Your immature arrogance will be the end of you!"
Hephaestus glared, his core blazing within him. The air shimmered from the heat coming off his body. The cracks aligned, turning into shapes.
A rune for strength.
CRACK!
A rune for endurance.
CRACK!
Reinforcement surged through his bones and muscles, honing his strength even further. The sight of runes across his body, and the way his divinity coiled within him, made even Taurvi balk at the sight.
"W-what are you!?"
Its hesitance didn't serve it any good. The weapons fell from the heavens, breaking the ground and cutting into his body. The palm of Hephaestus' hand opened and his inner flame surged forward.
The flames ignited the mud and danced across the corrupt vessel.
"You are an interloper! A breaker! You should not–cannot exert yourself outside your realm!? A foul thing, a broken thing!" cried Taurvi, lashing around to smother the flames.